Sydney Women’s Hockey League Inc.
2012 Annual Reports
Chairperson’s Report
As I sit down to write this report I reflect on the growth and development of Sydney Women’s Hockey League since I have been in the chair.
For 20 years we have grown and developed the competition to become the premier women’s league in Sydney catering for all levels of players from Juniors, Masters and Opens.
In 1993 our open competition ran four open divisions, today we have six, catering for 60 teams.
In 1994 we introduced an elite Sydney-wide competition - metropolitan league which was won by Esquires in its initial year. Today ML1 holds the reputation for being the elite competition for players in Sydney.
In 1995 we adopted our SWHL logo which was designed by a player of the then Everjays Hockey Club. We also introduced the Junior Development initiative whereby we run a round robin as a precursor to their relevant age Championships offering a structure to assist in their preparation. This format continues today.
In the early 2000s we moved from paper based administration to the development of a website and electronic communications.
In 2003 we held our inaugural Loretta Dorman Medal Presentation evening. This initiative was spawned by Gil Burns to recognise players within our Competition. The Loretta Dorman Medal is for the Player’s Players in ML1. This has grown to include winners from all grades within our Competition.
Since then there has been a period of consolidation for both the structure and competitions with the occasional curve ball being thrown from external organisations. I believe we are again on the brink of a new era with consideration of how to sustain and strengthen the competition. With a long standing committee, risk of position fatigue and an apparent diminishing volunteer base is impetus to look at new organisation models, such as paid administrative roles and partnerships. With the promise of new venues across Sydney the SWHL committee needs to have the energy to bring new life to the sport in Sydney.
Once again I must thank Just Hockey for their sponsorship and Dora Rosa and her staff at the Sydney Olympic Park Hockey Centre.
To the Committee I think you are fantastic and thanks for you great support during
2012. This year’s committee:
Secretary Tracy Bradford
Treasurer Rebecca Teece
Fixtures Sue Briggs
Umpires Lisa Roach
Registrars Micheal Gunner, Megan Cotterill and Janet Tancred
Publicity Gil Burns
Website coordinator Paul Economides
Robin Gorton
Chairperson
ML1-3 Registrar’s Annual Report
It is amazing another year has flown by, each year seems to go quicker and quicker.
Congratulations to all players, officials, volunteers and administrators on making this season so successful.
Congratulations to Sydney Uni in winning the ML1 Grand Final 3-1 over Briars, in the previous years they have come so close and this year was their year. UTS1 defied the odds and came from 4th place to win Grand Final 2-1 over Moorebank in a nail biting match. In ML3 GNS after dominating all season and not losing a match had to go to penalty strokes to beat UNSW 5-3.
The final points tables are as follows below:
Sydney Women's Hockey League - Metro League 1
Team P W D L F A GD Points
Sydney Uni 1 18 12 5 1 67 21 46 41
Gordon North Shore 1 18 12 3 3 45 21 24 39
Briars 1 18 11 4 3 46 17 29 37
Moorebank 1 18 12 1 5 48 31 17 37
Ryde-Hunters Hill 1 18 6 6 6 37 27 10 24
Western Districts 1 18 7 3 8 41 45 -4 24
Esquires 1 18 6 4 8 29 33 -4 22
Baulkham Hills 1 18 5 4 9 27 40 -13 19
UNSW 1 18 2 1 15 10 58 -48 7
Macarthur 1 18 1 1 16 17 74 -57 4
Sydney Women's Hockey League - Metro League 2
Team P W D L F A GD Points
Glebe 1 18 13 2 3 38 17 21 41
Moorebank 2 18 11 4 3 32 21 11 37
Briars 2 18 10 4 4 32 13 19 34
UTS 1 18 10 4 4 37 19 18 34
Ryde-Hunters Hill 2 18 5 4 9 23 25 -2 19
Esquires 2 18 4 7 7 18 26 -8 19
Sutherland 1 18 5 4 9 20 34 -14 19
Sydney Uni 2 18 8 4 6 40 24 16 16
Strikers 1 18 4 3 11 19 33 -14 15
Baulkham Hills 2 18 1 2 15 13 60 -47 1
Sydney Women's Hockey League - Metro League 3
Team P W D L F A GD Points
Gordon North Shore 2 18 16 2 0 58 10 48 50
UNSW 2 18 10 3 5 31 16 15 33
Moorebank 3 18 10 3 5 29 16 13 33
Macquarie Uni 1 18 8 5 5 42 27 15 29
UTS 2 18 7 4 7 23 21 2 25
Sydney Uni 3 17 8 3 6 26 31 -5 21
Strikers 2 17 5 5 7 12 15 -3 20
Harbourside 1 18 4 4 10 22 34 -12 16
St George 1 18 3 0 15 6 45 -39 9
Western Districts 2 18 2 3 13 8 42 -34 5
Congratulations to Claire McGarity from UNSW in winning this year’s coveted Loretta Dorman Medal, also well done to the other finalists; Helen Hathaway (GNS), Jo Jackson (UNSW), Vanessa Kristaly (WD) and Erin Burns (WD). Congratulations to Natalie Parmeter from Sutherland who won both the ML2 Best and Fairest and the Ange McCann Memorial Award for Outstanding Goalkeeper and Allira Cadogan (StG) who won the ML3 Best and Fairest. Also congratulations to Vanessa Kristaly who was the Open’s Leading Goalscorer with 20 goals.
This season saw a number of teams lose points for playing ineligible players, if you are unsure of one of the conditions of play do not guess or draw your own interpretations, gain clarification from the SWHL committee. Also if there is any changes to the conditions of play this is discussed at the first meeting prior to start of the season so please ensure that your club delegate attends and they in turn pass this information if there is changes on.
Finally I was extremely disappointed by certain individuals on their personal attacks of the registrars this year; we are volunteers who are elected to administer the rules as recorded in the conditions of play we do not make them up. I know that we administer these rules in a consistent and unbiased manner without prejudice or favouritism.
In closing I would like to thank all the team managers for all the efforts this year and the SWHL committee for their continued support and assistance. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and safe and prosperous New Year and I will see you all in 2013.
Regards
Micheal Gunner
ML1-3 Registrar
ML4-6 Registrar’s Report
What a great season in ML4, ML5 and ML6. It was wonderful to see this year how competitive the competition was with some grand finalists teams progressing from lower positions on the table to play the minor premiers. It was pleasing to see a variety of clubs winning the competitions. The lower grade winners were ML4 Glebe 2, ML5 Macarthur 2 and ML6 UNSW4.
Unfortunately, this year, a minority of clubs had difficulties correctly completing match cards and submitting the cards in the correct time frame. This made my job very difficult and I often had to spend extra hours back tracking and recording results. Furthermore, I found it distressing being contacted by multiple individuals who were not the club delegates, not only via email but via phone. All club members must be reminded that all correspondence should come through the club delegate.
As with previous seasons, it is very important that Best and Fairest Points and Goal scorers are accurately recorded on the card at the time of submission. This will result in equal and accurate statistics for all teams at the end of the season. Registrars do not have time to back track on results a week before the conclusion of the season.
As in previous years, please note, registrars only enforce the rules as per the conditions of play. Teams and Managers must familiarise themselves with the current SWHL rules of play to ensure there are no loss of points for teams, registration and qualification issues in 2013.
Finally I would like to thank all the members of the SWHL Executive for their help throughout my time as Registrar, it was greatly appreciated and I wish my successor the best of luck in 2013.
Megan Cotterill
ML4-6 Registrar
Masters (Veterans) Registrar Report
Div 1
ED1 defeated Illawarra by 5 goals to 0
Umpires: Marilyn Brown & Alison Banks
Div 2
North Shore 2 defeated Macarthur 6 – 5 with extra time and strokes after a 1 all draw at full time.
Umpires: Chris Vandenbroek & Roger Lee
Div 3
ED2 defeated North Shore 3 with a 4 – 1 scoreline after strokes broke a 1 all full time result.
Umpires: Wayne Cotterill & Richard Maher
Div 4
Nepean 2 defeated North Shore 4 with a 2 – 1 result. Nepean scored their 2nd goal after 6 minutes of extra time.
Umpires: Jodie Parnham & Chris Thuell
My sincere thanks to all who assisted with “bench duties” across the Finals series – John Langley, Gretchen Gamble, Carol Harriss, Jane Easterbrook, Lizzie Moran, and Sue Cotterill. Richard Maher & Wayne Cotterill also shared duties on a game to help out. I’m sure “Brownie” has already passed the thanks of the committee to all umpires who officiated.
The MASTERS AWARDS for 2012 went to:
Div 1 – Jane Hitchcock (North Shore 1) on 18 Best & Fairest points
Div 2 – Nicole Osborne (Parramatta 2) on 15 points
Div 3 – Maxine Rose (Parramatta 3) on 20 points
Div 4 – Suzanne Cooling (North Shore 4) on 28 points
Highest Goal Scorer - (on averages against games) 16 goals in 18 games: Karen Hall - Nepean 2.
Thanks to team managers who have managed to email score sheets in a readable fashion, on time. To those who still find that a challenge, an email with the results and the “old snail mail” to me will suffice. Amazing how many new reasons there are for failure to accomplish this feat?
For the information of interested clubs, NSW were once again the winners of the National Women’s Masters Championship trophy across all age groups in Melbourne recently with Gold medals in Over 50’s & 60’s and a Silver medal to our Over 55’s. These teams have many SWHL Masters players and officials within and it was great to see some new State representatives across the younger age groups being challenged at a higher level. A number of players from these teams have also been selected to represent Australia in the Trans Tasman in 2013.
The year has again been competitive and fun with a great deal of bonhomie on and off the pitch. If I am re-elected to this position, I once again encourage queries by email/text prior to a match to avert infringements in relation to the rules. I look forward to another great year of Masters’ Hockey in 2013 and thank the members of the SWHL Committee and Masters players/officials once again for their support of my role.
Janet Tancred
Masters’ Registrar
Fixtures Convenor Report
The 2012 season was relatively straight forward from the fixtures perspective. The planning around fixtures commences in November of the previous year. This includes identifying specific dates around the competitions, allocating games to specific venues, identifying competing events for venues, and securing bookings. An added complexity this season was working with Sydney Hockey Association (SHA) to set down some joint fixtures. This process continues to be one sided with SWHL expected to adapt to SHA’s fixtures. Despite this, a number of club days were set down and from all reports were highly successful.
The Open competition in 2012 explored some new venues including the new UNSW facility at David Phillips Field, Daceyville, and Narellan. Feedback from some teams that were scheduled to play at Narellan was mixed, with some commenting on the excessive distance.
As new venues become available, SWHL will continue to consider their utilisation for games. Vigilance is required to assess the balance between opportunities for local/club hockey and the impact these new venues may have on players and officials, bearing in mind that SOPHC is the preferred focus for our competitions.
Venues would not be available for our completion without the support of a number of clubs (UNSW, Macarthur Association, Bankstown, Briars, and Moorebank) and Dora Rosa and her staff at SOPHC. Many thanks for your patience, understanding and cooperation.
The Masters competition has continued successfully in its current format of competition being played over Monday (weekly) and Wednesday (fortnightly) nights at SOPHC. There
is, at this stage, no opportunity to expand this competition.
SWHL continues to support junior development by organising U15s and U13s competitions prior to the relevant age championships. With a busy program, trying to fit these games in between school holidays and finding available pitch time, these competitions are now reduced to 3 rounds.
From August this season I had Australian Masters Hockey commitments overseas. This meant that a number of committee members needed to cover my role leading up to the final series. Many thanks to Janet, Megan, Michael and the Umpires Committee for ensuring the finals ran smoothly.
As always, my role is made easier by the cooperation of teams and their officials. Thank you for this support.
Working with the current committee is a privilege. These people are incredibly committed to hockey and to ensuring SWHL remains a high standard organisation. Thank you once again for your great support.